The eyewear market provides numerous options for people who rely on eyewear in their daily lives. The multitude of different requirements that individuals have, has created a large market of auxiliary lens systems of eyewear. In these systems, a primary lens assembly is augmented by an auxiliary lens assembly. The combinations provide numerous options for satisfying individual requirements for visual assistance and protection.
An example of the utility of combining a primary lens assembly with an auxiliary lens assembly is when the primary lenses are corrective lenses and the auxiliary lenses are light transmission reducing lenses, for example, a polarizing, absorbing, refracting, photochromatic, or reflecting lenses, or any combination thereof (i.e., sunglasses). Another example is when the primary lenses are corrective lenses and the auxiliary lenses are impact resistant safety lenses.
The recent surge in popularity of these devices has created a need for a means to display the devices for retail selection and purchase. Presently, there are no devices available for conveniently displaying to the prospective buyer, both the primary and auxiliary lens assemblies, in a manner that allows the prospective buyer to see how the primary and auxiliary lens assemblies together, and that utilizes existing displays.
Presently, numerous display systems permit display and accessibility to a single lens assembly. For example, U.S. Pat. No. D478,227 S to Peyker discloses an ornamental design for a display case for eyewear. U.S. Pat. No. D426,998 to Kidd, discloses another ornamental design for a display case for eyewear. The principal disadvantage of these designs is that they only support a primary lens assembly, and are not capable of displaying an auxiliary lens assembly, or a primary and auxiliary lens assembly combination.
U.S. Pat. No. Des. 371,458 discloses an eyewear support for a display tray. While this support is limited to working in conjunction with tray display system, it also is limited to supporting a singular primary lens assembly.
Auxiliary eyewear systems such as those described above can only support a primary lens assembly to the exclusion of the auxiliary lens assembly. Most of the various prior art designs cannot support an auxiliary lens assembly in a portal for a primary lens assembly, because the auxiliary lens assemblies lack the pivotally attached legs for going over the ears of the wearer that are commonly used to attach the primary lens assembly in the display device. Another disadvantage of the various prior art designs is that they cannot display a primary and auxiliary lens assembly combination.
It can thus be seen that there is a need to develop a design for a device capable of displaying both primary lens assemblies and auxiliary lens assemblies, which allows close comparison of the matching features of the primary lens assemblies and auxiliary lens assemblies, and which can be used in combination with the existing display devices of retail eyewear outlets.